Vocera to Acquire Extension Healthcare for $55M

Vocera Communications, the San Jose, Calif.-based healthcare communications company, has announced that it has acquired Extension Healthcare for approximately $55 million in an all-cash transaction.

The Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Extension Healthcare is a provider of clinical, event-driven communication and workflow collaboration software for the hospital environment. Officials of the companies said in the announcement that “the strengths of the two companies and their solutions will deepen interoperability of the Vocera Communication Platform with more than 120 clinical systems, including electronic health records (EHRs), physiologic monitors, enterprise clinical systems, and biomed devices such as ventilators.” They added, “It will also extend the scalability of the enterprise-class platform and enable stronger person-to-person and system-to-person workflows within a single system from a single vendor.”

Vocera ranked 76th on this year’s Healthcare Informatics 100 list, an annual ranking of the top 100 vendors in the health IT market based on revenue earned in the sector the past year.

Extension Healthcare’s well-known clinical integration software solution Engage features a clinical rules engine that unifies data from multiple sources simultaneously, enables prioritization of notifications, adds patient context, and sends messages to care team members on their mobile devices. Essentially, the platform allows clinicians to be away from the bedside while staying informed about their patients, officials attest.

Vocera and Extension Healthcare have actually collaborated many times and share more than 40 hospital customers across the U.S., including several medical centers within the Veterans Health Administration.

“This acquisition extends the power of Vocera’s software platform for hospitals and health systems seeking one partner for all of their care team collaboration, workflow and communication needs,” Brent Lang, president and CEO of Vocera, said in a statement. Todd Plesko, co-founder and CEO of Extension Healthcare added, “It’s inspiring to be part of healthcare’s next generation of technology that simplifies and improves care team collaboration. With our visions aligned and software platforms combined, this new endeavor will make a positive and lasting impact on healthcare delivery.”

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